<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Seeps Into Your Pores by betheflame</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28242762">Seeps Into Your Pores</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame'>betheflame</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Addiction, Adopted Peter Parker, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cannibalism, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Were-Creatures, Werewolf Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:27:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,185</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28242762</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony could smell it. </p><p>Sitting at the kitchen table, leafing through a pile of junk mail that had accumulated over the past several months, the smell hit Tony so strongly that he felt physically knocked back. </p><p>He may not be a shifter like his husband, what with Steve’s supernatural nose and ability to smell things literally miles away, but he also wasn’t an idiot. There was copper in the air; copper and an unfortunate hint of CK One, which meant that Steve had gone hunting either in 1994 or near a college campus. </p><p>Tony punched a fist into the wall and immediately regretted it. “GODDAMNIT STEVEN,” he yelled to no one in particular, knowing that if Steve had been hunting, he’d be in the den beneath the house and unable to hear him. He then took five breaths in and out like his therapist had recommended. </p><p>The therapist he needed because his husband was an addict.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>197</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Seeps Into Your Pores</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic was for the Sad Secret Santa Stony Dark Fest Exchange, but it just didn't end up working out for that. I finished it anyway and here you go. A quick note on the "implied cheating" tag - it is entirely done in the context of the addiction and I am of the belief that because they are all in chase of the high, Steve is not able to cheat because it is not a conscious decision. Tony agrees with me. I wasn't going to tag it this way at all because I don't see it as infidelity, but a beta asked me to give y'all a heads up, so I'm obliging. </p><p>I decided were-gestation is timed differently, so when you get to adoption timing, just hand wave it for me, eh? </p><p>Thanks to jeh, moody, and Marie for the hand-holding and to elweneyre for an utterly stella beta job.</p><p>Note: As you can clearly see from the summary, there are elements of darkness in this fic. I’ve been asked to explicitly alert you that there are minor references to dark elements like werewolves eating humans, and the fact that Steve uses sex workers at times as easy prey. This is not a fic where Steve is a cuddly dog, by far.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tony could smell it.</p><p>Sitting at the kitchen table, leafing through a pile of junk mail that had accumulated over the past several months, the smell hit Tony so strongly that he felt physically knocked back.</p><p>He may not be a shifter like his husband, what with Steve’s supernatural nose and ability to smell things literally miles away, but he also wasn’t an idiot. There was copper in the air; copper and an unfortunate hint of CK One, which meant that Steve had gone hunting either in 1994 or near a college campus.</p><p>Tony punched a fist into the wall and immediately regretted it. “GODDAMNIT STEVEN,” he yelled to no one in particular, knowing that if Steve had been hunting, he’d be in the den beneath the house and unable to hear him. He then took five breaths in and out like his therapist had recommended.</p><p>The therapist he needed because his husband was an addict.</p><p>Tony sighed. “Well, universe, I guess it’s back to square one.”</p><p>Steve had been sober - or clean? They still hadn’t decided what to call it - for six months at that point, one of his longest stretches since this all began. At first, all those years ago, Tony had assumed it was just anger management issues. Someone who was half-wolf, half-human was bound to struggle with instincts, right?</p><p>And then the bodies started appearing on the evening news, and Steve would leave the room, and Tony would find clothing that was too small for either of them in the wash. Tony’d been a twink himself when they’d gotten together, so he really shouldn’t have been surprised Steve had a type, but…</p><p>Before Tony could really investigate the idea that Steve had murdered and possibly eaten a sex worker the night before, his phone buzzed with a predictable number.</p><p>
  <em>WhatsApp: Arya Stark</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: Please tell me you and Steve were fucking last night, and there’s no way this missing kid was what I think he was</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: I wish I could</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: Goddamn it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: Can you cover? We’ll go on vacation again.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: You swear to me on all the gods old and new that no one can hack this phone?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: If they can, I’ll sell my whole company. I promise.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: Then yes, I need two weeks.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: We cannot keep doing this.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: At some point, maybe he just needs to go to jail.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: What jail could he shift in? No, I’ll lose him forever and I can’t stomach that.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: You can’t care about him more than he cares about him, Tony. It can’t work like that long term.</em>
</p><p>Tony knew Nat was right. He knew it in his bones, but fighting for Steve had been baked into his bones at this point, and doing anything else felt…</p><p>Tony Stark, heir to the Stark Family Fortune (which was so large that it got capitalized even though that was grammatically incorrect), had hated college. Mostly because he was bored, but also because he was there To Make Connections with Important People that would make Howard and Maria proud. They were already wary that he carried the recessive cryptid gene passed down from Howard’s family that could manifest itself at any time, so Tony needed to be as human as possible in public.</p><p>Mythics couldn’t inherit because as far as the U.S. government was concerned, as soon as their creature side was shown, they were no longer human. The Stark mythic line were alchemists and so had escaped years of discovery because they still presented as humans. Howard was a paranoid motherfucker, however, and Tony had grown up learning his powers in secret because he got no formal training in how to cultivate them.</p><p>That all led to matriculating into Fallwell State’s freshman class of 2001. The first few years were fine - he fucked a lot of people, and definitely some cryptids. Mythics who shifted into other creatures fascinated him, and he’d found himself in bed with a few jinns, a handful of griffins, and a particularly memorable phoenix.</p><p>And then he met Steve Rogers.</p><p>A shy art student built like a brick shithouse, Steve had caught Tony’s eye by being the most responsible of all his friends. They slowly got to know each other (and by slowly, Tony means they had several full conversations before clothes came off), and by the end of sophomore year, they were SteveTony.</p><p>Steve told Tony really quickly about being a wolf shifter - there were logistics to cover - but swore that he was entirely on synthetic hunt material.</p><p>“No, I would never,” Steve swore when Tony expressed concern. “My kind has evolved past that. We have all the… listen, Tony, if a shifter actually eats humans these days, there is something wrong with them. We talk about them like addicts - like there’s something actually physically wrong with them that they crave it. I know wolves who have made mistakes and dabbled in cadavers or stealing bodies before cremation, but someone who would actually kill a human to eat them? Never, Tony, I promise.”</p><p>And that had remained true until the fourth time they got turned down for adoption.</p><p>And then the bodies started disappearing from the morgue.</p><p>And then Steve started smelling like other men’s cologne.</p><p>And their sex life went from great to… fierce.</p><p>And Tony learned that when wolves ingest human blood, their pheromones and sex drive both increase dramatically.</p><p>
  <em>“Steve,” Tony said calmly, one evening in 2016, “I have a quick question.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, baby?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Our bedroom smells like you’ve bathed in Drakar Noir because?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve’s face emptied of color. “I have it under control.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You have, what, exactly, under control?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“The cravings,” Steve replied. “I know I…”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I need you to start at the beginning,” Tony sighed, and they didn’t get any sleep that night.</em>
</p><p>Steve had confessed that what started as an experiment had grown into much more. He tearfully told Tony about how impotent and useless he felt when they kept getting turned down for adoption because he was unemployed. He could tell that their adoption liaison guessed Steve was a cryptid and probably a wolf shifter, and he was convinced she was sabotaging them.</p><p>One night, he felt like he was crawling out of his own skin, and so he went online to one of the dark wolf web forums and found a dealer ready to sell him some human flesh. He heard it would make his shift so powerful that he’d forget his human life for a little while, and that was all Steve wanted in the whole world. To forget.</p><p>Tony held him that night as he sobbed - giant racking tears that Tony knew were genuine. They came up with a plan to wean Steve off the human flesh.</p><p>It worked for about two months.</p><p>And then Tony became intimately acquainted with the concept of “the cycle of addiction.”</p><p>In the summer of 2017, they’d moved to a completely new city, and Steve had taken up work with a local narcotics investigator named Natasha Romanov. He helped her understand wolf psyches, and she helped him stay clean and made sure he had a supply of the highest quality synthetic and animal flesh and connections to a great therapist.</p><p>And then, Steve’s newest mural got panned in the art section of the paper, and the cycle started again.</p><p>That time, however, Tony had a partner in it all, and he and Nat got really close. After Steve’s second trip to rehab, Tony had built her a secure phone so they could conspire to keep Steve safe. She’d picked the stealthiest pseudonym she knew.</p><p>He stared at the phone for a few minutes.</p><p>
  <em>Tony: But isn’t that what marriage is? I said vows. Sickness and health.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: You said vows to a man who hadn’t ever dreamed of dabbling in this world, and you’re now married to one in the grips of it. What’s next, Tony? He’s eating sex workers. He’s paying for twinky boys, meeting them in hotels, and dragging them into the woods where he fucks and eats them. Do I need to get more graphic?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: Fuck you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: I love him, but not more than I love you, and not more than I love my job or my oath to protect the citizens of this city. He’s a public menace, and he’s about to end up on an episode of My Favorite Murder if we’re not careful.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: What am I supposed to do?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Arya: Let me arrest him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: No. Not yet. Give me one more chance.</em>
</p><p>His phone was silent, and he knew what he was asking of Nat. And yet, he couldn’t help himself.</p>
<hr/><p>Steve slowly came back to himself and immediately threw up.</p><p>Last night hadn’t even been good. The power high he got from fucking willing victims and then eating them after had long gone. The forums said that he had to start fucking unwilling ones to really satisfy the primal urge.</p><p>That’s what everyone said.</p><p>This was all normal. All a primal urge. Anyone who tried to convince Steve that he was an addict or sick just didn’t understand. It was society that put him in this position - forced to eat synthetic human flesh or animal carcasses against his true nature.</p><p>All of that made complete sense when he was in the throes of his cravings, or when he was caught up on Discord with a group of other shifters, who all easily convinced him that Tony would never understand how hard this life was.</p><p>But the minute he woke up after a feed, feeling both completely strung-out and bathed in shame, Steve could barely function. No one on those servers knew who he was. None of them knew what he looked like, for fuck’s sake; how could they know him well enough to tell him to betray his marriage? He chose Tony as pack so long ago that to assume anything else felt against his very core.</p><p>And yet…</p><p>Knowing how much he shamed Tony only made him want to go and disappear inside his wolfself all the more.</p><p>When he’d first let those instincts of his wolf side bleed into his human side, Steve told himself it was just going to be that once. The sense of shame was so overwhelming that he didn’t actually remember making the choice to head to the dealer he found on Reddit. He just found himself in a park, eating a human leg like it was nothing, and then heading home and fucking Tony so hard that he’d bruised Tony’s tailbone.</p><p>The problem was that it had all gotten out of control so quickly. Soon, sex with Tony wasn’t enough because as much as Tony wanted to, he couldn’t keep up with a wolf libido. So Steve started picking up men in bars after getting the flesh from the dealer. And that was fine for a while.</p><p>But he kept remembering.</p><p>He’d wake up in a cold sweat and know that he was the problem in their marriage: he was why they’d never get a child, he was ruining Tony’s life, and soon he’d be wandering the streets again.</p><p>Last night’s trigger had been so stupid Steve could barely keep himself from throwing up at the thought. Tony had wanted to watch Lion King.</p><p>That was it.</p><p>Steve fucked and murdered a 19-year-old boy named Colin because his husband wanted to watch his favorite children’s movie - the one they always talked about showing their future children.</p><p>He’d been sober for two months. He was doing so well, and fucking <em>Hakuna Matata</em> had set him off.</p><p>Time for drastic measures.</p>
<hr/><p>“He’s gone.”</p><p>Tony’s voice was dead on the phone and Rhodey’s stomach dropped. “What do you mean, Tones?”</p><p>“I mean,” the depth of Tony’s breath rattled in Rhodey’s ear, “that he left me a note and told me to file the divorce papers. He was going to live with a pack.”</p><p>“He’s going feral?” Rhodey fought against the roar forming in his gut. He was a shifter, too, and had been afraid of Steve taking this measure since this nonsense started. Rhodey knew the dark messages out there for their kind - that human life was unnatural, that keeping your shifted self in control was just a means for The Man to own you - and he also knew that Steve believed they were bullshit. In a way, Rhodey had been preparing for this phone call for years.</p><p>Didn’t make it any easier.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Tony said, and Rhodey heard the tearful resignation in his voice. Rhodey had chosen Tony as an emotional packmate long before anyone knew who Steve Rogers was, and he knew all of the alchemist’s voices. “He sounds like he was Steve and not the wolf when he wrote this - a lot about how he couldn't keep doing this to me, about how he’s ruining my life, lots of the self-deprecating shit I always hear when he realizes what he’s done. No commitment to change, though. Sounds like he’s giving up.”</p><p>Jesus fuck, Rogers. “I’m on my way, Tones.”</p><p>“You don’t have to-”</p><p>“Anthony Edward Stark. Shut your mouth. I’m on my way.”</p><p>There was a long pause. “Thanks, Rhodey.”</p><p>“Not even a thing.”</p><p>Rhodey hung up and started packing a suitcase. He was a leopard shifter and in full control of his shifts - which had taken discipline and decisions and a lot of training to fight his instincts. He knew the communities Steve had stumbled into, and knew the messages they were putting in his head. He’d heard the way anarchists whispered about humans suppressing animal instincts, and that way lay madness - literally.</p><p>But the strategy of getting Steve out of his addiction was for later. Now, Rhodey just had to get to his best friend before Tony shattered completely.</p>
<hr/><p>“It’s been nine months, Tony,” Nat said gently.</p><p>“I know,” he said, his voice scraping over the tears that gathered in his throat. “Actually, it’s been 262 days, but rounding is allowed.”</p><p>“I think -”</p><p>“I swear to god, Natasha, that if you say it’s time to give up on him, you are no longer welcome in this home.”</p><p>She was quiet.</p><p>“I know other people need to walk away. I’ve been to all the meetings. I’ve read the books, the memoirs. I’ve talked to professionals. I know my options, and my choice is to look for him until there is no more breath in my body,” Tony said.</p><p>“You’ve always been a dramatic queen,” Nat murmured, but Tony heard the affection in it.</p><p>“He’s my husband, Nat,” Tony said with a shrug. “I made vows.”</p><p>“He broke-”</p><p>“I know, trust me. I know. The wolf broke those vows, though, Nat. You’re right that I didn’t marry anyone who would eat people” - his voice caught on the phrase - “but the man I married is still part of that creature.”</p><p>“Not if he’s gone completely feral, Tony,” Nat pressed.</p><p>“Science is inconclusive on the longevity of shift,” Tony recited. “Rhodey was once a leopard for a full year in an undercover ops mission. Took him a little bit to balance again, but he did it.”</p><p>Tony could tell Nat had more to say, but she stopped herself. Perhaps she’d realized he wasn’t going to be persuaded on this.</p><p>“If there is another killing in my town, I will arrest him,” Nat said instead. “I will put him in an adamantium cage, and I won’t care who he is married to anymore. If he comes back here -”</p><p>“I get it, Nat.” He held up his hand to stop her thoughts. “I know I’m the only one who will fight for him, and you’ve held off long enough. Thank you for giving me this much time.”</p><p>She didn’t respond. Instead, she got up and headed for his kitchen. He heard the whistle of a tea kettle a few moments later and smiled. He had four gadgets for making hot beverages in that kitchen, but Nat and Steve had always liked the meditation they said came with old-fashioned tea-making methods. He kept the kettle perpetually heated most days - his version of Hotel 6 leaving a light on.</p><p>When she came back to the couch with a mug of tea in hand, she settled into his side. She grabbed the remote control and flipped on Netflix, scrolling for a few minutes until she landed on Frasier. “Officer Romanov is off duty, I promise.”</p><p>They watched in silence for a while, the familiar rhythms of the sitcom washing over Tony as they often did. Steve hated older sitcoms. He’d never had time for the canned laughter, he claimed. The more modern ones - <em>Parks &amp; Recreation, Superstore, Schitt’s Creek</em> - those he loved. They’d howled their way through <em>Derry Girls</em> and cried at Amy and Jake’s wedding on<em> Brooklyn 99.</em> Those shows had been silent for nine months. Instead, he and Nat watched<em> Frasier</em>, and <em>Friends</em>, and <em>Designing Women</em>. It felt appropriate to this chapter of his life, which was either an intermission or the start of another story entirely, and he couldn’t decide which one it was.</p><p>He was angry a lot, but mostly he was <em>terrified</em>. Terrified with every phone call that Steve had been arrested, or killed. Terrified at the idea that this was the rest of his life - always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Terrified for Steve, that he was alone and scared somewhere, that he had nowhere safe to shift back if he ever chose to. Terrified that Steve had lost that choice completely.</p><p>After he’d left, Tony had gone through some of the history on his computer. He read message after message of Steve reaching out to people he obviously thought struggled like he did, but were just pushing Steve entirely into submission to his base instincts. Tony vomited a few times as he read the messages, but mostly he sobbed. He sobbed that he could literally make gold from his fingers, but he couldn’t love his husband enough to keep him safe. He sobbed that Steve was in this much pain and had never told him. He sobbed for all the lost opportunities, all the things that could have been, if they’d ever been given any of those children.</p><p>And then he tried to build a life that could function without Steve but that could be quickly abandoned should Steve come back.</p><p>It was exhausting.</p><p>It was overwhelming.</p><p>It was hell.</p><p>And it was his only option.</p>
<hr/><p>“Mr. Stark?”</p><p>Tony knew this call was coming. His social worker had warned him, but he still wasn’t fully prepared. “Speaking.”</p><p>“I’m Adelaide Masterson with Fauklander Child Placement. I’m pleased to report that you’ve been chosen as the adoptive parents for a baby boy who will be born at the end of June. The birth parents would like to meet you at your earliest convenience.”</p><p>“That is amazing news,” Tony said, forcing joy into his tone. “My husband is on a long work assignment right now, so I hope they’re amenable to just meeting me.”</p><p>“I’m sure they will be, Mr. Stark,” Adelaide assured him. “This is not uncommon, and the birth parents are prepared. As long as they can meet with one of you.”</p><p>“Name the time and place, and I’ll be there,” Tony assured her. They exchanged details and made a plan, and then Tony hung up the phone and shattered into approximately seventeen thousand emotional pieces.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Dear Steve,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We’ve been chosen to be parents. I know what you’re saying: this is a ‘yet again’ situation and we shouldn’t get our hopes up. Except that the parents already signed the contract, and they accepted my clause of financial penalty if they back out on us. They’ve been honest - these two are broke and have been disowned by their family. They’re a wolf shifter and a cat shifter (I know), and neither family will accept them into the pack, and they’re terrified of their child not having a family. When I told them we’ve created our own pack, and that their child would be one of our own, Mary (the mom) started sobbing.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Evidently, we’re the only ones who said they’d raise a shifter of any kind currently available in the system. I’m not surprised, but it just reminded me we have work to do.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I told them you’re on an extended business trip, and I am prepared to raise this kid alone. Nat will help, and she’s got a really hot girlfriend now - owns a bakery, which works out well for me - and she’s on board to help, too.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But we both know I don’t want to.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m sending this to every single rehab in North America that accepts wolf shifters, and I’m hoping you’ll get this in time. If you won’t, I’ll continue this until I get your death certificate.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Come home, Steven. It’s been a year. Your family is waiting.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony</em>
</p><p>Tony hit “print” on the 27th copy and stuffed it into the envelope that would wing its way to Montana and the Sleepy Pines Rehab Center. It was a shot in the dark, but he had to try. He had to.</p><p>Only Tony had to be present to sign the adoption papers, legally, but then it could cause problems in the future as the kid grew up. Plus, emotionally? Tony couldn’t imagine raising an infant without the man he dreamed about that with.</p><p>“Please, baby,” he murmured as he licked the envelope, “don’t make me figure it out.”</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>
    <span class="u">One Year &amp; 3 Months Since Steve Ran</span>
  </em>
</p><p>Steve read the letter for the fourth time, knowing that if he wasn’t careful, the tear-stained page would crumble in his shaking hands.</p><p>He’d arrived at Capstone Wolf Refuge in Alberta two months ago, wrung out and ready to be sober. Steve had spent nearly eleven months running from pack to pack, trying to find home with one. It would work for a few weeks, and then someone or something would remind him that he already had a pack. He’d sober up and start running back to Tony before the craving and shame would overtake along the way, and he’d find himself on Grindr again. He’d gotten good at being homeless, at trading resources for burner phones, at knowing the smell of a flop house from a mile away. He’d met people who had been on the top of the world before something flipped and they lost themselves, and others who were born into the cycle.</p><p>His rock bottom had come when he realized he had killed a father.</p><p>The guy had been on one of the servers for? people who had a shifter kink - Steve’s usual method of finding a hit - and looked so young that it never occurred to Steve the kid didn’t know what he was getting into. Instead, when Steve was still licking his chops the next day, the guy’s phone rang out with a text message asking him to pick up diapers on his way home from the overnight shift. Steve had never shifted back to human so quickly.</p><p>He headed to the ER, identified himself as an addict, and asked for resources to help detox from human flesh. The nurse who checked him was equal parts kind and firm, and he was transferred from that hospital directly to Capstone. It was time and he knew it.</p><p>Three days after he arrived, his therapist handed him a pack of letters.</p><p>
  <em>“For the past three months, they’ve been coming every week to every rehab in our network,” Paul explained. “You’ve become a bit of an urban legend, Steve. We couldn’t quite believe this guy was for real.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Oh, he’s for real,” Steve said with a dry laugh. “There’s just no one else like him.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’d say.” Paul was quiet for a few moments and then spoke softly. “There’s always hope to build something new, Steve. You’re not who you were - you’re building a new version of yourself, one that carries these stories, but knows they were choices you can’t make again. I’m sure Tony is ready to be part of that process.”</em>
</p><p>The letters contained sonogram photos and notes from the birth parents. Tony wrote long entries about how he was decorating the nursery in such atrocious colors that Steve would be forced to get sober just to fix it. Steve laughed at the few times Nat threw in a post-it that simply read “Jesus, Rogers, he’s insufferable.”</p><p>Today was the day he felt brave enough to write back.</p><p>Journaling was a big part of Capstone’s rehabilitation program. From the first day, Steve had treated his as a series of letters to Tony, with the plan to give them to him when Steve finally went home. With the completion of his fourth notebook, however, he realized that he could send some of them ahead of time - especially because he hadn’t let Tony know yet where he was. It had felt too fresh, too risky, too precarious. Steve needed at least two full moon cycles before he could feel comfortable to let Tony into this process - the last time he’d been clean for that long was the months before he ran.</p><p>He placed the books, stuffed with doodles and words, stained with tears and coffee, into a box and then began to write.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Tony -</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m safe and alive.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I should start there.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m safe and alive.</em>
</p><p>Tony let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding for over a year. The first words he’d heard from his husband in so long knocked him off his feet, and he found himself sinking into the kitchen chair next to the package that had just been delivered.</p><p>
  <em>I’m at Capstone Wolf Refuge up in Canada, and I found myself again. When I left you, I was trying to find another pack, certain you’d sign the papers and get on with your life. When I was sober and clear, I sobbed at the idea that I threw away the only solid part of my life, but I thought love was about setting you free.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>My therapist here told me that was selfish, too. Divorce is a decision we both make, and my getting help was a decision we both should have made, because my addiction was never just about me. He’s taught me the beginnings of the thought cycles that got me here, how to stop them in their tracks, and how to be a wolf again without the addict side. I haven’t shifted without him since I got here, and they won’t let me leave until I find someone near us who will shift with me for a few months. I already wrote to Nat.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m getting ahead of myself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Baby, I’m ready to come home. I have no idea if you’ll still have me, or if you think I’m ready to start this parenting thing with you now - A CAT SHIFTER?! - but I’m ready to come home as soon as Paul talks to Nat and makes sure I have someone safe in Brownwood.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m sorry, by the way, for a thousand things - large and small. You’ll find my detailed apologies, groveling, and self-loathing in the journals in the box.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I have a new phone - I just got it, actually. Part of weaning me back into “real life,” or so they say. It’s 682-333-8192. If you wanna talk, I want to, too.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>With more love than I can explain,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve.</em>
</p><p>Tony dropped his head into his hands and took three deep breaths. Tears had run out ages ago, but they still threatened. His body was ready for a release of the tension he’d held for so long, but his brain was still screaming “CONSTANT VIGILANCE” in Brendan Gleeson’s most Mad-Eye Moody voice.</p><p>He pulled out his cell phone and opened the messaging app. He typed in Steve’s number and began.</p><p>
  <em>Tony: Steve, this is your home, too. And if you’re HusbandSteve and not AddictSteve, then come on home.</em>
</p><p>He put his phone down, expecting it would take a while for Steve to reply, and got up to make coffee. He was pouring the milk into his mug when his phone buzzed.</p><p>
  <em>Steve: I’m Husband, and I never want to be Addict again, but I know I’ll need help.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: Sickness and health, for as long as we both shall live. You fucked with the forsaking all others part for a bit - I didn’t like not being chosen, but I get the mechanics of your brain now, that I wasn’t part of your thinking when you were in a craving cycle.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve: If you were, we wouldn’t be here. This disease is a bitch.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: Choose me, then, and come home.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve: As soon as everyone we trust says it’s safe, I’m on my way.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve: I love you. I promise I do.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: Then show me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: I want to trust you, I stg steve. I love you so much it actually hurts.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: I need you to choose me, to choose our future, and teach me how to help you break those triggers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve: Forsaking all others, for as long as we both shall live. This is my coventantal vow.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: Okay, drama queen. Just get home.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve: I’ll let you know when to boil the kettle.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: It’s never been off simmer.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Steve: Jesus, I don’t deserve you</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony: None of that. Just get home.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>It took about three weeks after that exchange to find someone to sponsor Steve’s sobriety and and commit strongly enough that both Paul and Nat were comfortable. It took another week for Steve to feel like he knew the person - a guy named James he had actually grown up with, but they’d lost touch - well enough to trust him with this process.</p><p>And then it took three days after that to find the perfect present for Steve to give to Tony to show he was truly serious. A reference to a long-established joke, and one Steve hoped Tony would remember and still find endearing.</p><p>But now it was time. He was in an Uber on the way to his house - the one he’d fled so many months ago. Their son was due to arrive in about six weeks, and he hoped and prayed that would be enough time for them to build a quasi-new normal before they had to build a new one again.</p><p>As they approached the house, a million memories flooded Steve’s brain all at once, but he also lost his breath with how ashamed of himself he was.</p><p>
  <em>Stevie, that way lies madness, literally. You made mistakes. He made mistakes. Yours were more drastic, but not less worthy of forgiveness. Stop deciding who you are to him, and let him tell you himself.</em>
</p><p>The voice of James - who allowed Steve to call him Bucky like he did when they were kids - from their last phone call thankfully doused the encroaching panic attack, and before he knew it, he was outside his house.</p><p>He gathered his luggage and the surprise, and stepped out of the car. He was about to start up the driveway when the front door opened.</p><p>“Did you bring me a motherfucking cat?”</p><p>“Name’s Fluffy.”</p><p>“Well that is a terrible name,” Tony said, starting down the path towards Steve.</p><p>“It was the one the shelter gave her,” Steve replied. “I’m sure she can learn to answer to something else.”</p><p>“She’s a cat,” Tony said, “she’ll never answer to anything.”</p><p>Once they were within an arm’s length of each other, Tony paused and peered at Steve intently. “The cat. She means what I think she means?”</p><p>Steve nodded, and Tony grabbed the front of Steve’s shirt to pull him in for a kiss.</p><p>In The Before, Tony had always wanted a cat. He’d bugged Steve about it for ages, and Steve laughed him off. He’d say that wolves and cats weren’t meant to be together and asked how Tony expected Steve’s wolf-self to be in control around a cat. Tony had always replied that he trusted Steve to be an adult, even as a wolf. It had been a joke, and then a painful reminder of who he once was, and now he hoped it was a promise.</p><p>Tony picked the cat up out of the crate and held it to his cheek. “I think we’re going to call her Phoenix, because you rose from the ashes, baby.”</p><p>Steve’s eyes clouded with tears as Phoenix meowed and bopped Tony on the nose.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, Fee,” Tony said playfully, “I’m sure you’re hungry. Let’s get you inside because I love your dad, but I’m sure he completely forgot to buy everything you’d need, and just bought me a grand gesture, because that is who he is. Huh? What do you think, Fee? Did I get him right?”</p><p>Instead of responding, Steve pointed to a box still sitting on the sidewalk. “Litter, food, toys, litter tray, thingy to clean the litter. Stopped at Petsmart on the way here.”</p><p>“Well, fuck me, you have changed,” Tony said with a laugh. “As long as you still make that banana cream pie the same way, I think I’ll still keep you.”</p><p>“Little rusty, but I think I can figure it out,” Steve replied evenly, and hoped Tony would hear the weight of everything he was putting behind those words. “Why don’t we go inside and get Fee all set up in her new home?”</p><p>“A man with a plan,” Tony said with a small grin. “Always been into those.”</p>
<hr/><p>“It’s your turn,” Tony muttered into the pillow, and Steve fought a smile.</p><p>“I know, baby,” Steve said. He kissed the top of Tony’s forehead and rolled himself out of bed. He padded down the hall to Peter’s room and lifted the squalling baby from his crib.</p><p>“What’s up, little man? Your diaper smells fine, and you shouldn’t be hungry. You just lonely? I understand,” Steve said. “Why don’t we watch some baseball together?” He set up the iPad they kept in the room and clicked on the ESPN app. He threw on the Red Sox game from earlier in the evening that he’d missed anyway and attempted to settle Peter back into calm.</p><p>The doctor told them it wasn’t colic, or anything physical, really. Their best guess was that his instincts were starting to develop, and they’d find out soon exactly what shifter he was. A cat nose would pop during a temper tantrum, or he’d wake up with a wolf tail during a high fever. Tony and Steve wondered if Peter’s pack instincts were starting to kick in - he was testing them to make sure he was theirs. They were happy to assure him that he was.</p><p>Steve had passed his one-year sobriety mark a bit ago, and with every passing month, he felt less and less like a shoe was about to drop. Sobriety was never a permanent state, as Bucky kept reminding him, but every new memory he made with Tony and Peter felt like one more brick in the foundation of this recovery life. He’d started to talk to other shifters about his journey, and that was helping, too. If his pain could help other people recognize warning signs, then he’d talk about it forever.</p><p>Pain seeps into your pores, he told them. You feel like you literally want to peel your own skin off to get away from it. Instead, he offered, you needed to find the emotional equivalent of a loofa and some good lotion. Get it out, for sure, but realize that it’ll linger, so the best you can do is learn to cope smoothly.</p><p>It was inelegant, he knew, but it worked for him.</p><p>Peter sneezed. “Bless you, little man,” Steve whispered and kissed the top of his head. The boy settled after a while and drifted back to sleep, but Steve was loath to put him back in the crib. In his arms, and in the bed in the other room, were his tethers to sobriety. The more time he spent with them, the more he gathered strength to continue to be FamilySteve instead of AddictSteve.</p><p>“Hey,” Tony said sleepily from the doorway. “He drift back off?”</p><p>“Yeah, and you should have, too,” Steve replied.</p><p>Tony shrugged. “Awake now. Gonna get some grading done.” Part of their new life was that Tony had decided to stop his work-from-home life that could be picked up whenever and to plant some roots. He was the newest chemistry teacher at the local high school, while Steve took care of most of the day-to-day caring for Peter. He was painting again, but having a living creature to focus on helped ground him immensely.</p><p>“I’m gonna keep watching the Sox with Petey,” Steve replied, just as Fee jumped up on Steve’s lap and nosed at Peter’s feet. Tony snapped a photo quickly and then crossed into the room to kiss Steve’s forehead.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>“I choose you,” Steve replied.</p><p>“Forsaking all others,” Tony said with a smile.</p><p>“For as long as we both shall live.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you liked the story, I'd love to know! Kudos and comments are life giving. If you're not sure what to say in the comment, know that I take keyboard smashes and emojis as full love. So, if you liked it more than just a kudos, dropping a heart emoji is great and I thank you in advance.</p><p>Find me on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1">Twitter</a> or <a href="http://betheflame.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a> for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the <a href="https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS">Put on the Suit Stony Server  </a> or the <a href="https://discord.gg/ktXHUb4">STB Enthusiasts Stuckony</a> one.<br/><br/>Oh! And FestiveFerret and I have a <a href="http://www.podonthesuit.com">fandom podcast</a> if you're so inclined.<br/><br/></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>